Killer Heat

by Brenda Novak

  Pivoting, Jonah headed back across Francesca’s living room. “What do you think? Paris wouldn’t go after Francesca, would she?” he said. “She hasn’t slept with Butch.” But she’d been a threat to Paris and her family. If not for Francesca’s appearance at the salvage yard, and her dogged pursuit of Butch as the probable killer, the spotlight of this investigation might never have turned their way.

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Finch said.

  “Tell Butch he’d better start talking. Because if Paris kills Francesca, or anyone else, I’ll do everything I can—hire investigators or consulting attorneys, whatever is necessary—to make sure she gets the death penalty. And he’ll go to prison as an accomplice. Then who’ll take care of Champ?”

  “We tried that—”

  “Tell him again!” Jonah shouted. “Tell him I’ll make it my life’s mission to destroy him and everyone he loves if he doesn’t do what he can to help me now!”

  “You’ve really pissed him off,” he heard Finch say to Butch. “You’d better consider what’s best for your son and help us stop your psycho wife. There’s no way to save her now, Butch. It’s time to think of Champ. Hunsacker’s right here, backing me up. And you know he wouldn’t lie to you. You might as well do all you can for your son.”

  “But I don’t know anything!” Butch screamed. There was no need for Finch to repeat it. Jonah had heard every word—and every word made him sicker. “I have no idea where she is,” he went on. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have been sitting out on the street, hoping to spot her!”

  “What about the Wheelers?” Jonah asked Finch. “Maybe they—”

  “I’ve talked to them. They don’t know any more than Butch does.”

  Jonah had to find her. But how? “She’s got a cell phone,” he said. “Use triangulation. Now!”

  “But we’re not even sure Francesca’s in danger.”

  “Paris is missing. So is Francesca. That means chances are good she is in danger. Just figure out where the hell she is, and do it as fast as possible,” he snapped. Then he hung up and did the only thing he could—he dialed Francesca’s cell yet again.

  When her cell phone rang, Francesca moved to answer it. Jonah had been trying to reach her all morning. She’d purposely ignored his calls because she hadn’t been willing to talk to him, hadn’t wanted to explain what was going through her head last night. But now that she’d seen this bat, she couldn’t wait to tell him they had physical evidence. She wasn’t sure if they could actually prove Dean had killed someone with it—Butch or someone else could’ve been responsible for the blood—but that could be established later. This might be their first link to one of the other victims, someone besides Julia, which meant she hadn’t been so wrong in believing these killings were tied in some way to the salvage yard.

  But she didn’t get the chance to tell him anything. Just as her hand moved, Paris hit her with what felt like a two-by-four.

  She went blind for a second as every muscle in her body locked. Falling onto the seat, she struggled just to breathe. But it didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. Paris hadn’t hit her with a board. She’d used a Taser. Francesca knew because it wasn’t her first time being shocked. She’d experienced a similar jolt while in the police academy—routine training for all cops—and remembered the immediate soreness of her body, the disorientation. Had she not reached back when she did, and unknowingly knocked the device, she probably would’ve sustained an even longer charge.

  The reason for this attack was more difficult to figure out. “Why” required logic. And that part of her brain was slower in recovering. Paris was trying to force her hands into a pair of handcuffs before Francesca put the obvious together—that Paris had incapacitated her for a very deadly reason—and she only realized that because Paris was swearing at her.

  “You stupid bitch! You’re dead now. You think you can take me away from my family? You think you can sic the police on my husband? I’ll show you what happens to people who mess with us!”

  Francesca wished she’d opened the door on the other side of the car, facing the highway. There wasn’t much traffic on the road, but an occasional car or truck rumbled by. She heard the motor of one now, wished the driver would be able to see more than a woman standing on the desert side of an Impala with a flat tire—but she knew that was unlikely.

  Afraid Paris would shock her again if she didn’t seem to be in sufficient pain, she jerked and writhed as if she couldn’t gain control of her body. Depending on size and muscle mass, as well as the length of the jolt, reactions to Tasers varied widely. She used that knowledge to her advantage as she rolled her eyes and flopped around.

  “You didn’t like that, did you?” Paris said, laughing. “Hold still and let me cuff you or I’ll shock you again.”

  Francesca couldn’t allow Paris to cuff her hands. If she did, she’d have no chance of defending herself. But she was headfirst in the backseat of a car, on her stomach. She had nothing to fight with, not even her fists.

  A second later, she heard the sickening catch of the cuffs snapping into place. Then Paris dragged her out of the car and, threatening her with the Taser, told her to walk toward her BMW. And when Paris paused to get the bat out of the backseat, Francesca knew what was coming.

  “You don’t feel bad?” she asked as she stumbled across the uneven ground. “About all the women you’ve killed?”

  “Why should I feel bad?” Paris held her by her handcuffs. “They tried to hurt me first.”

  “Butch is just as much to blame. April didn’t even know he was married. He lied to her, lied until he could get what he wanted.”

  “Shut up! That’s not true.”

  “You’re going to prison,” Francesca muttered. “And this is only going to make it worse.”

  Pain shot up Francesca’s arms as Paris yanked on her cuffs. “We’ll see about that.”

  Paris was so used to being overlooked, to not being viewed as a suspect at all, she didn’t even seem scared. She really thought she could pull it off. And Francesca was worried that might be true. She and Jonah had been too busy suspecting Butch or Dean to consider Paris. They’d been looking for a rapist, which made her wonder what she had coming along those lines, too…

  They’d nearly reached the BMW when Francesca heard a car down the road. Hope flickered briefly inside her but didn’t last. Paris swung her around to hide the cuffs, and the Toyota Avalon drove right past.

  That didn’t really surprise Francesca. Although the driver had glanced over at them, there was no reason to suspect serious problems. With two cars on the side of the road, one of them as new as her BMW, it would be natural to assume the person with the flat was already receiving the help she needed.

  After the Toyota was gone, Paris opened the door to the backseat of the BMW, shoved Francesca in and jogged around to get behind the wheel.

  Francesca couldn’t tell where Paris was taking her, but she knew her chances of survival diminished with each passing second. Paris would need privacy in order to kill her, so they were probably heading to a motel room or some other place she felt safe. She’d obviously picked this location because it was remote. Maybe they weren’t going anywhere—except farther into the desert.

  After checking in both directions to make sure she wouldn’t be seen, Paris eased around the Impala, then abruptly turned off the road, as Francesca had expected. Cactus needles scratched the sides of the car as they bounced along. They wouldn’t get far driving on such rough terrain with low-profile radials, but they didn’t need to go far. Only a mile or two, just out of sight of the road. That was where her life would end.

  Desperate to jump out while she might still be able to flag down another driver, Francesca twisted around so she could reach the door latch with her cuffed hands.

  Paris cursed when she realized what Francesca was doing and fumbled in the front seat, no doubt searching for her Taser.

  Francesca didn’t give her the opportunity. Maybe th
e fall would kill her, but it would be better than being raped and beaten to death by a woman with a bat. Either way, jumping was her only chance.

  Somehow she managed to release the latch and push the door open with her feet. Then she closed her eyes and flung herself out.

  Paris had slammed on the brakes, but the jolt of hitting the ground still knocked the wind out of Francesca. She could taste tequila at the back of her throat, could smell car exhaust and dust. It felt as if the sun-baked earth would swallow her whole, suffocate her. Was she really handcuffed and lying in the desert in the middle of a scorching afternoon? Or was this some kind of nightmare?

  Dimly she heard Paris turn the car around, knew she was racing toward her in the Beemer and understood that it wasn’t a nightmare. It was as real as real could get; Paris didn’t plan on stopping.

  Get up! Now! Francesca’s mind screamed and, somehow, she got to her feet and began to run. All she could think about was putting a barrier between her and the BMW.

  With mostly flat terrain and no large rocks anywhere close, the Impala seemed to be her only option. At this point, it was barely six feet away, but she didn’t believe she’d reach it.

  She thought of Jonah and regretted that she hadn’t really forgiven him as she’d promised. Holding a grudge suddenly seemed so contrary to her own happiness, so pointless. What good was it? No good, because it kept them apart. She wished she could tell him she was finally ready to start over and make it work, to forgive Adriana, as well. But it was too late. The BMW was bearing down on her. At most, she had a second before it struck—a second she used to dive beneath the Impala.

  As Francesca landed she heard an earsplitting crash.

  A man’s voice registered. Francesca wished it was Jonah’s, but knew instantly it wasn’t. Struggling to raise her eyelids, she moaned his name, hoping he’d somehow hear her, come for her. Instead, the person who’d spoken a moment earlier touched her shoulder.

  “It’s okay, ma’am. You’re going to be okay.”

  It was an EMT. She recognized his uniform through her eyelashes; she couldn’t open her eyes any wider. The sun shone too brightly, seemed to be slanting directly into her face. “Where am I?”

  “The desert outside Wickenburg.”

  Right. She remembered now. “Wh-what’s wrong with me?”

  “You’ve sustained some injuries.”

  She knew that much. If she could’ve laughed, she would have. Every bone in her body seemed to be broken. “I’m…I’m on fire.”

  “That’s the pain. We’re taking care of it.”

  A needle pricked her arm. Painkiller. This would dull the pain but would also make it impossible to think clearly. And she wanted to be able to talk, to explain what Paris had done, and to understand what she heard in reply.

  Swallowing, her throat gritty with dust, she forced her mouth to form more words. “Wh-what happened…to her?”

  “The woman who tried to run you down?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s only the two of you out here?”

  She licked dry lips. “Yes.”

  “She sustained a head injury but she’s in better shape than you are.”

  “She…she tried to kill me. She…should be…arrested.” Francesca sucked air into her lungs as they lifted her onto a gurney.

  “Don’t worry,” the EMT assured her. “The motorist who called in the incident was an off-duty cop. He kept a good eye on her until the cavalry arrived. She’ll go to the hospital, be checked out and then released to the police. Everything’s under control.”

  About half of what he said went right over her head, but she grasped that Paris was where she needed to be, at last. She let her eyelids slide closed but couldn’t rest. She wanted Jonah. “Will—will you…find Jonah Young for me? Please?”

  “Careful. Watch that edge.” The EMT was speaking to someone else Francesca hadn’t even realized was there, a partner. Obviously preoccupied, he was trying to get her into the ambulance. But she didn’t want to go to the hospital or anywhere without telling Jonah how she felt about him. Just in case…

  The painkiller was already making her thoughts fuzzy, her tongue thick, but she managed to grab hold of the EMT’s sleeve. “Jonah…”

  “Ma’am, you need to relax.”

  Tears rolled into Francesca’s hair. Jonah wasn’t around. She couldn’t tell him, had to go through this alone. She was just trying to come to terms with that when a police officer approached the back of the ambulance. “She able to talk?”

  “Not really,” the EMT responded. “Why?”

  “I’ve got a Jonah Young on the phone. He wants to speak to her.”

  The EMT shut one door of the ambulance and was about to shut the other. “He’ll have to do it later. She’s got a few broken bones and might have suffered some internal injuries. We need to get her to the hospital.”

  “Wait!” Francesca tried to sit up and fell back. From then on, it became even harder to drag words to her mouth. “Let me…talk…to…him.”

  She knew she’d said it, but didn’t know how her words were received. She seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness. It was the pain, the drugs, the shock. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, she felt a phone pressed to her ear and heard a voice she immediately recognized.

  “Francesca?”

  “Jonah…I—I’m…sorry. I…want…to be…with you…for ever,” she said, and then she slipped into a black void. When she came out of it again, it seemed as if hours, maybe days, had passed. But Jonah was there.

  “Hey, how do you feel?” he asked, hovering over her hospital bed.

  She managed a half smile. “Better now.” Her voice was hoarse from disuse. “Am I…am I going to live?”

  “You’re going to be as good as new,” he promised, and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

  Epilogue

  “What about these flowers? Aren’t you going to take them?”

  Leaning on the crutches that made her mobile despite a broken leg, Francesca hesitated near the hospital bed where she’d spent the past few days and glanced at her mother. Every other bouquet she’d received was waiting in the back of Jonah’s Jeep Cherokee—the small teddy bear and single rose from Heather, the tiger lilies from her parents, the wheelbarrow plant from Hunsacker and Finch, the vase of wildflowers from Jill and Vince, and several dozen red roses from Jonah. But these flowers were from Adriana, who’d sent them instead of calling or stopping by.

  “I’ve got a free arm, I can grab them,” her mother said and started to reach for the vase, but Francesca stopped her.

  “No, leave them.”

  Her mother turned to her in surprise. “You don’t want them?”

  “Not now.”

  Her mother peered more closely at her. “You’re not making sense, honey. It’s not like you can get them later. They’ll be dead and gone.”

  Maybe the flowers would be dead and gone, but Adriana would be living her own life, taking care of her family, just as she should be. And, for the time being, Francesca needed to know Adriana was giving her the chance to love Jonah without thinking about their friendship. This alone proved she was the type of friend Francesca had always thought. “What they represent won’t be gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that love is enough—when the time is right,” she added with a smile.

  Her mother probably would’ve asked her to elaborate, except that her father wheeled himself into the room. “Hey, how’s my girl?”

  Francesca hobbled over to give him a hug. “Fine, Dad. We were just on our way.”

  “Jonah’s got the car downstairs by the lobby doors.”

  Jonah had been by her side night and day since she was injured and yet she couldn’t wait to see him. “I’m coming.”

  Her father let her go out ahead of him, but then caught her wrist. “About Jonah…you sure you want to risk your heart again?” he asked softly. “I’m positive.”

  He chuckled. “Well,
if he can make you smile like that, I’ll have to trust you, won’t I?”

  She bent to let him rub his knuckles against her cheek. “Thanks.”

  His thick, callused fingers curled through hers. “Francesca?”

  “What?”

  “I’m proud of you,” he said.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6881-8

  KILLER HEAT

  Copyright © 2010 by Brenda Novak, Inc.

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